A cellular wireless network may include a number of base stations that radiate to define wireless coverage areas, such as cells and cell sectors, in which user equipment devices (UEs) such as cell phones, tablet computers, tracking devices, embedded wireless modules, and other wirelessly equipped communication devices, can operate and engage in air-interface communication with the network. In turn, each base station may be coupled with network infrastructure that provides connectivity with one or more transport networks, such as the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and/or the Internet for instance. With this arrangement, a UE within coverage of the network may engage in air interface communication with a base station and may thereby communicate via the base station with various remote network entities or with other UEs.
The cellular wireless network may operate in accordance with an agreed air-interface protocol or “radio access technology,” examples of which include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) (e.g., 1×EV-DO and 1×RTT), Long Term Evolution (LTE) (e.g., FDD LTE and TDD LTE), WiMAX, iDEN, TDMA, AMPS, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), GPRS, UMTS, EDGE, MMDS, WI-FI, and BLUETOOTH. Generally, the agreed air-interface protocol may define a downlink (or forward link) for carrying communications from the base stations to UEs and an uplink (or reverse link) for carrying communications from UEs to the base stations. Further, the agreed air-interface protocol may employ techniques such time-division multiplexing, frequency-division multiplexing, and/or code-division multiplexing to divide the downlink and uplink into discrete resources (e.g., LTE resource blocks, 1×EV-DO timeslot resources, etc.), which may then be used to carry control and/or bearer data between the base station and particular UEs.